Dozen Serious Threats Registered against Bulgarian PM

According to outgoing Bulgarian Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, he had received scores even "thousands" dead threats. Photo by BGNES

The serious threats on the life of outgoing Bulgarian Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, amount to nearly a dozen.

The news was reported Friday by the Bulgarian Trud (Labor) daily in the aftermath of Borisov stating the honorary chairman of the ethnic Turkishparty Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS, Ahmed Dogan, had masterminded a plot to kill him.

The Trud editors have made the effort to assemble similar reports over the last years.

On Thursday, speaking from the parliamentary rostrum just minutes after parliament accepted with overwhelming majority the resignation of the government of his Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB, Borisov shockingly declared Dogan wanted him dead, citing a document from the intelligence of a foreign country.

He said he learned about a plotted assassination attempt on his life just two weeks ago. The attempt on the outgoing PM's life, dating from the summer of 2009, just ahead of the previous general election, stemmed from him inflicting on the interests of a powerful, international organized crime group.

According to Trud, three of the tipoffs regarding Borisov's life being in danger came from neighboring Serbia.

The first two date from 2003 and 2004 and were tied to Serbian drug lord Sreten Jocic AKA Joca Amsterdam. At the time, he was hunted by Interpol; was apprehended in Bulgaria in 2002, and extradited to the Netherlands. The threats involved both Borisov and the Dutch prosecutor who requested the extradition.

In 2002, the Bulgarian Interior Ministry launched a covert operation against Jocic, codenamed "Lale" (Tulip), which also entangled notorious Bulgarian mobster Milcho Bonev AKA Bay Mile, close to one of the two top organized crime groups in the 90s of the 20th century – SIK.

Bay Mile was killed along with 5 other people in an execution style murder in 2004 after surviving a bomb attack in 2001.

According to reports, circulating for years now, in a recording, made by Bulgarian anti-mafia police with secret surveillance devices, SRS, Bay Mile is heart saying to Jocic: "Boyko took the money and the Varna man did not get anything."

The taped conversation happened just a day before Jocic's extradition to the Netherlands.

It still remains unclear who were Boyko and the Varna man, and what money has been involved.

The third Serbian threat against Borisov dates from June 2005, when the Serbian services for combatting organized crime have reported that the Serbian mafia is masterminding an attack on the Bulgarian Chief Secretary of the Interior, which was Borisov's post at the time.

There have been two serious threats against the outgoing PM, coming from Bulgarian organized crime.

The first one dates from 2001, when Bulgarian mobsters Konstantin Dimitrov AKA Kosio Samokovetsa (from Samokov) and Meto Ilienski, both from the VIS group, and Stoil Stoilov from the rivaling SIK have been intercepted by Greek mafia planning Borisov's murder in the Hyatt hotel in Thessaloniki. The Greek then informed Bulgarian services.

Dimitrov was killed in 2006, while Ilienski vanished in 2003.

Another similar meeting has taken place in February 2002, when the same people and several other mobsters have met in a vacation home in the Vitosha mountain near Sofia to plot the murder of Borisov over a busted illegal drugs channel.

The National Security Services, NSO, also list as serious a bomb threat against Borisov and his Deputy, Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, issued just days after GERB won the general election in the summer of 2009.

According to Borisov, along with the above, he had received scores even "thousands" such threats.

Meanwhile, a number of Bulgarian intelligence chiefs gave contradicting reports on the alleged tipoff Dogan was involved in a plot to kill the outgoing PM.

On Wednesday, Borisov made the stunning announcement he was resigning, grounding the decision on not wanting to see blood on streets and fences around the building of the Parliament. He said he was returning the power to the people who elected him in the summer of 2009.

The breaking news about Borisov's resignation came in the aftermath of large-scale protests across the country against high utility bills, leading to clashes with riot police with many injuries and vandalism.